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Keeping in line with the tradition of this blog, I proudly present the year 2010 in a recap here...

This year was releatively a crawler compared to the past few years. A majority of my journeys this year were by my new car, and successfully ran over 24,000 kms over this year. Railfanning took a backseat as usual, while Busfanning came forward (only to be sent back again).

Have a fun filled run on the Punalur-Shencottah line this year, and was fortunate enough to be present on the last day of service as well.

Had two fun-filled trips from college, with my classmates - One to Chennai and Vellore, Second to Sringeri, and Manipal. Although both were aimed at attended conferences, we had a blast at both places. Such trips help a lot in improving the bond between students.

Got two pets - a dog and a cat! The doggie is now just about a year old, while the cat (pussy) is just about a month-and-a-half old now. Robin (my doggie) had a long journey to Bangalore (his hometown) and back in my car…

'Unity in Diversity' is one statement we Indian's often quote to explain the greatness of our country in simple terms. Our country is certainly diverse with a wide range of languages and cultures, stratified religions and what not. But this post is not intended to glorify India further, but is aimed at a few interesting "united we stand" tidbits from Kerala. Kerala is one tiny piece of land hanging precariously down along Peninsular India. With perhaps the largest per.sq.km population, Kerala is one helluva populous state.

While, officially, Kerala has only one state language - "Malayalam" (Note: not "Malyalam" or "Malyalee"), the actual form of the language used takes different form, so much enough for each of them being labelled a 'dialect'. Although all the strings of words spoken by common men in Kerala is called "Malayalam", there is a wide variety of "malayalams" used in Kerala. Starting from Kasarag…

The year 2010 would easily go into the history of this blog as an abyss. With just over 30 posts over the year, Platform7 was dormant for most parts of the year. Not because nothing happened over the year, I got all the more lazy to post! Life has been on the slow track over this year (more on that later).

Getting back to studies after close to two years of living off my own money was not a simple task. My exams just got concluded - and was preceeded by a two month study vacation. I began each day of my vacation with the pledge to start studying "today", and ended up the day with a pledge to start studying "tomorrow". The two months ran off as if it were just two days, and it finally dawned on me that the exam starts the next day! The regular "guilty" feeling of not starting early dawns, and finally ends up in leaving me hurrying through! I do love "performing" under pressure, though!

Watching movies at cinema halls are usually a mixed bag experience - one gets the fun of watching it along with comments from other viewers, while the horrible state of cinema halls gives the overall experience a thumbs down. My experience last night at a cinema hall in Kochi was such. I had written a half-baked story comparing conventional cinema halls v/s multiplexes a while back (read it here). I am one who loves watching movies at cinema theaters, but not ready to compromise on comfort.

Last night, I (and my family) went to a pretty major cinema hall in Kochi (one of the three "S"s) to watch the latest Mammootty flick Best Actor. The movie in itself was watchable (not great by any extent of imagination, but a nice movie). The movie is directed by the debutant Martin Prakkat. The movie is all about the experiences a wannabe movie actor faces in his attempts to hit the screen. He finally succeeds, but after overcoming a lot of funny and intense situations. Mammookka has r…